A Way Out is the forced coop split screen game by that coked out developer from the Game awards. They did Brothers which was a really unique cool indie game with neat gameplay ideas and puzzles. A Way Out is not that, its a narrative based game with the most simple basic gameplay you can imagine. For large parts of the game you just walk around, click on the only few objects you can interact with and do super easy QTEs. There is no real thinking involved, no skill, the coop is there as a gimmick and is not really used in interesting ways (hold R1 to fill half a meter and wait for the other player to press R1 to fll his half to complete the QTE... thats the level of gameplay you are getting). Imagine someone made a coop game based on the Uncharted walking sections, thats mostly A Way Out.

I say mostly cause in between you walking around clicking shit some crazy shit happens, mostly in the second half of the game where the developers just went bananas and threw everything into the game. I love games that try variety even if its bad, give me mini games, change stuff up, surprise me. After the boring first half I was blown away at how batshit insane the game becomes. These are setpieces that rival Uncharted, now it has the gameplay of a 1990s PS1 era destruction derby game, so janky. But the effort was there. Insane chases, crazy shootouts, the last part becomes a terrible third person shooter but its so over the top its great. Everything plays horribly but my god does the story and setpieces save this from being a total piece of shit.

The story is good by game standards, it has some neat twists and turns. The coop is fine, the real magic is being able to talk shit about the game with your friend while you play it. I played with F1 and we had a blast mocking the game then being blown away at how the ante kept rising as the game hit its explosive finale.

Terrible gameplay, cool story and experience. If you can get it cheap it maybe worth a try.